BWW Reviews: Heartwarming World Premiere at TAP Celebrates Dating During the 21st Century

An old adage claims a person can only have their heart broken three times before their entire soul breaks apart. For those persons interested in dating after losing a partner, by chance, divorce or death, online dating can either be a welcome consolation or a cause for consternation. Third Avenue Playhouse in conjunction with Riverway Studio of East Haddam, Connecticut for the Stage Door Theatre Company premiere a heartwarming and humorous prodcution titled METHUSELAH's Guide to Online Dating.

With the assistance of outside voices other than the five member cast, a voice inteneded to be Methusalah begins the performance off stage telling the story using a funny slide show, and begins at the beginning of time to why relationships have been and will eternally reign as the cornerstone of society. This principle remains true for a single, married or starting over in a relationship individual. The idea for the show was concieved by two accomplimished actors, composers and writers from New England, Todd Alan Little and Ira Sokolsky, who also play Ted and Ian in the produciiton. Traveling with them from the East Coast to Sturgeon Bay were Becca Atkins (Janet), Suzanne Powers (Amy) and Elijah Manning (Evan), who complete the cast.

Little and Sokolsy, two single men over the aga of 45, would often gather to discuss their experiences with dating over coffee, especially the travails of dating online. After discussing this for a time, the two created the produciton combining narration, connected vignettes and orginal music. Their experiences and stories, which they qualify at the opening of the performance, were culled mainly from truth, and the cast asks the audience before the perfromance begins: Who is married? Who is single? Who has tried on-ine dating?

On a weekend evening, two couples had been married for 52 years, and only one person had tried on-line dating. The audience's relationship status makes absolutely little difference to how much the show will be enjoyed because as the narrator states, while the reasons for dating and mating have changed little over centuries, the methods have taken to the intenet. As the main narrator to the performance Evan relates, the rise of numerous dating sites, inlcuding Match.com, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and Farmers Only (with the tag line "City Folk Don't Get It) multiply daily, Nearly everyone wishes for a relationship....while also heeding the advice of experienced on-line daters: Don't believe everything your read. Don't trust photos, Meeting is believing, Meet in person early. Stay away from the wing nuts. Use the hierachy on how to break up, either by texting, a phone call or in person.

After posting and reading the numerous personal profiles on line and then learning the rules, the dating games begins: first dates, second dates, when do I call, how do I avoid calling, first kisses, emails and texts, spending the night, discussing exclusivity, and meeting children/or co-workers are battles to be waged online and in person.

Atkins plays the never married, high-powered executive women Janet, Powers plays Amy, a divorced woman with two children. Little's Ted relates to the divorced man without chldren, while Sakowlsy's Ian, an artistic type and organic baker, lost his wife to an early death. Each one gives the charactes honest emoitons while these four people seek love the second time around. The Guide to Online Dating's format rapidly changes scenes mixed with musical interludes from the entire quintet and works especaily well on stage, especially at the intimate Stage Door Theatre, a perfect venue for the premiere.

Since the cast traveled from the East Coast to produce the show while Little and Sokolsky composed, directed, designed and wrote the entire show, the task in completing the production was monumental. Minimal scenery focuses the audience on the characters and the action, which moves easily and seemlessly thorugh two acts, even with several instruments on stage. As the narrator, Manning oversees the action with a quiet confidence and moves the action while the chemistry between the cast members plays to the themes in the show. With the hope the show will be produced in another venue, or another state, perhaps more scenery might frame the action with additonal richness while outside direction and design could give the production stylish polish.

Throughout these four characters' missteps and mishaps, each character grows in his or her understanding of their life and what sustaining new relationships require. This desire and necessicity to learn and then love again and again becomes a thirst rarely quenched in a most individuals until another "soulmate" match might be made.

Take a chance and enjoy this throughly entertaining new produciton, together with Methuselah's sage advice, which will mend a broken heart or lift the spirits of those individuals already coupled. The actions and emotions in this Online Dating Guide speak to chance and choice, humor and pain, disappointment and elation, the amourous expectations and realites of dating again. A performance equally charming, heartfelt and wit-tinged that anwers the question with poignant truth: will anyone ever love me again?

Surgeon Bay's Third Avenue Playhouse in a Co-Production with Riverway Studio of Easst Haddam, Connecticut presents Methuselah's Guide to Online Dating at 239 North Third Avenue, 920.743.1760 or www.thirdavenueplayhouse.com